Heat
by Once Upon a Whim
Summary: San Francisco may be pushing 110 degrees, but the city isn't the only thing heating up. [Lucy/Wyatt, post-season 1]
1. Wyatt

**Umm, I have approximately 47,001 other things (both for fics and real life) that I should have been working on instead of this, but I had to go and notice a headline about the high temperatures in San Francisco, and then this happened. Oops. Just some silly, frivolous fun. And almost zero editing happened here (see: the 47,001 other things to do), so apologies for that.**

* * *

Wyatt fights the wakefulness that is slowly creeping in. Even with his eyes still closed, he can easily surmise that whatever that pleasant dream he'd been having was, it was far preferable to the reality awaiting him. He can feel any and all exposed skin stuck fast to the leather of the chair he'd slumped in at Mason however long ago. The air feels thick and heavy, and the vaguely helpful breeze of the fan he'd set aimed at himself before dozing off is most certainly gone.

"Rufus," he whines into the probably-empty room, still stubbornly refusing to open his eyes to the reality of the temperature. "Where'd the fan go?"

"They needed it for downstairs, to try and help keep the computers cool," comes the matter-of-fact reply.

But the voice doesn't come from Rufus.

Wyatt opens one eye just a smidge, enough to follow the sound of Lucy's voice and peer across the room at her. And then suddenly, both eyes widen and he's a little more awake.

She hadn't been there yet when he reported earlier that morning. He'd gotten a call – Emma was on the move again, so he'd begrudgingly hauled himself from the then-still-cool cocoon of his semi-air-conditioned apartment to make his way to Mason Industries. But by the time he'd gotten in, the unrelenting heat of the previous day's 111-degree high coupled with already-rising temperatures today had started to wreak havoc on the hardware of all the computing systems. The warehouse was climate-controlled, of course, but the record-setting heatwave had the air conditioner's compressor struggling to keep up with cooling such a large space. So he'd been ordered to stand by while the techs addressed the issue of the computers' operating temperatures.

For him, that had meant permission to steal a nap upstairs, as he hardly even felt recovered from their previous mission. It was a bit stuffier up there, but the fan he'd dug up had helped.

But now that fan is gone. However, Lucy is there. But Lucy's clothes are _barely_ there.

She must have had the same idea as him once she'd arrived – grab a little extra sleep – because she's stretched out over the length of one of the too-short couches across from him. She just happens to be in the smallest amount clothing he's seen her in since, well, since _ever_ , and that's counting when he essentially ogled her topless in the jail cell roughly 4 hours after meeting her. He still feels a little bad about that, but that's not really what's dominating his thoughts at the moment.

Not when she's wearing the tiniest denim shorts he's ever seen on an adult woman. And certainly not when the little mint green tank top she's in – already rather revealing – is rolled up to just under her breasts, effectively covering little more than the pale pink bra he can see peeking out from under the shirt's strap. Those seemingly endless legs of hers are invitingly smooth as they're draped over the arm of the couch, her feet bare aside from her left flip-flop dangling from her toes, with their pretty, berry-hued manicure. Her hair is up in some messy, twisted arrangement, leaving her neck exposed save for the few curls that cling to her skin in the same sheen of sweat that glistens on her forehead above her still-closed eyes. And because that isn't enough, she's got a ziplock of mostly melted ice perched on her chest under her chin, and either it's leaking or it's condensation, but there are a few little dribbles of water running down her chest to under that think tank top, and all he wants to do in that moment is lick them up.

As if it isn't warm enough in the room already, Wyatt most certainly feels his own temperature creep up by a few degrees.

He realizes belatedly that he should probably say something in response to Lucy's offering of information about the fan, but his brain is doing a little bit of a short circuit-y thing. He probably also shouldn't be staring at her quite so blatantly, lest she open her eyes or someone else walk into find him practically drooling. He blinks hard, tearing his gaze from her body, and clears his throat as he shifts awkwardly in his own chair. "Uh, ok," he stammers. "Thanks-"

Mercifully, Rufus bursts back into the room at precisely that moment, saving Wyatt from more less-than-eloquent stumbling over words.

"Mothership's back in the present," he informs them. "We're off the hook."

Wyatt knows it's coming before it happens; Lucy scrunches up her face, contorts her body a little, and lets out a groan. "Ugh, what did she do that now we don't even know about?" But she surprises him a second later, her whole frame going slack on the couch once more. "You know what?" she corrects herself, "I don't even care. It's too hot."

Her movements have shifted her shirt just enough to expose the actual bra part of the bra, not just the strap, and Wyatt has to agree about the hot thing. "Seriously," he echoes under his breath.

If she has any idea what she's doing to him, she either doesn't care or is just plain evil, because the next thing she does is stretch languorously, making some oh-so-intriguing little noises of pleasure in the back of her throat before craning her neck to throw a winning smile in Rufus' direction.

"Rufus?" she asks, her voice syrupy sweet.

"Uh huh?" Rufus grins in response, though not looking at Lucy; Wyatt can feel the weight of his amused stare as he shifts again in his seat. Lucy may be oblivious to the effect she's having on him, but Rufus isn't.

"What are the odds we can take the lifeboat on a little unplanned excursion?" Lucy proposes. "Like maybe the first successful expedition to the South Pole? Klondike Gold Rush?" Her initially reasonable tone of voice is quickly deteriorating into whiny grousing. "Anywhere cold? Please?"

Rufus gives a dour chuckle. "Sure, let's go hang with the Donner Party. I hear they were super fun."

Lucy shoots a glare at him over her shoulder, and Wyatt is on the receiving end of the next one because he can't help himself and laughs at her too. But what else is he supposed to do when she, a Stanford professor, is adorably whiny and pouty? He rarely sees this side of her, but, miserable temperatures notwithstanding, it's kind of amusing. Or at least it would be if he felt he could join in and tease her, but his throat is still a little dry and she still looks like _that_ , so words, teasing or not, still aren't coming particularly easily.

"Somewhere cold?" Lucy pleads one more time. "Anywhere?"

Rufus shakes his head. "No can do, sorry." He apologizes, explaining, "The heat still has some of the CPUs on the fritz."

Lucy sighs.

With a furrowed brow, Rufus eyes her quizzically. "Why don't you just go home? You have AC."

"Barely," she glowers, pulling herself to a sitting position. Much to Wyatt's dismay, the tank top slides back into position, covering her midsection. "I practically had to sit on it yesterday to feel anything."

Wyatt sympathizes with that; his own apartment is much the same. The one unit in the wall of his living room had barely put a dent in the temperature of anything beyond a ten-foot radius yesterday. Given the skeptical look Rufus is shooting Lucy, he manages to voice his support and corroborate her claim. "My place is the same, man."

"My mom's place has good AC," Rufus shrugs. "And a pool. Jiya and I are going to head over. You guys are welcome to come too. We can barbecue if someone can stand the grill long enough to cook stuff. Might have to deal with my brother and bunch of other high school seniors, but if your places are that bad-"

Lucy practically leaps off the couch. "I'm in," she declares immediately, already shoving her foot in the wayward flip-flop, heading for the door, and herding Rufus into motion. She pauses before leaving, glancing back into the room at Wyatt. "You coming?"

A reflexive snort escapes from Wyatt at her inadvertent innuendo. If he's already this affected by the sight of her in shorts and a tank top, yeah, he's probably going to have to take matters into his own hands and do exactly that when he gets home later that night if he's going to be subjected to an afternoon of the sight of her in a bathing suit.

Still, he must have a masochistic streak, because the mental image he's conjuring up of exactly that sight is proving to be too tempting, and before he realizes what he's doing, Wyatt is nodding his confirmation.

So it's just a few minutes later that the four of them exit Mason Industries and venture out into the oppressive heat. Jiya and Rufus are driving together, obviously. Lucy will follow them, with a quick detour to her apartment, since it's on the way. And though his place is further out of the way, Wyatt needs to go home as well, to grab his swimsuit. Not to mention reevaluate whether he really can handle a day spent with Lucy in even less clothing than what she's already wearing. He's half hoping that she'll have some sort of racing suit, a one-piece with a high neck and all that. Or maybe she'll even be one of those women so concerned about burning that she'll have long sleeves on. She's pretty pale, right?

Wyatt shakes his head at himself as he climbs into his sweltering Jeep and cranks the AC. It's not that he doesn't want her – oh, he _does_. And it's not even that he doesn't _want_ to want her – yeah, he'd been stuck in that mode for a while, still wrapped up in the memory of Jessica and feeling guilty for having even an inkling of a feeling about someone else. But he's (mostly) made his peace with that; he hadn't been lying that day, that day that now seems like forever ago, when he'd said he wanted to move on from the past. It's just that now they've been in this holding pattern, this odd suspended animation of a (non-)relationship, since the whole Rittenhouse thing blew up and Emma stole the mothership. He would swear on his life that if Mason hadn't walked in when he did, they'd have ended up kissing right there in the hallway that day. But stupid Mason had walked in, and it had felt like they were teenagers getting caught sneaking around the hallways at school by a teacher or something. And then nothing since.

So not, it's not an issue of not wanting her, or not wanting to want her. Wyatt just has no idea how or when or even _if_ to act on that wanting. It's not like with Jess, when they'd both been young and impulsive and had just sort of fallen into a relationship. Now, half a lifetime later, he's a little broken, maybe even a _lot_ broken. And Lucy, for all she's been through, is a little broken too. So he's not quite sure how to proceed.

By the time he pulls up to his apartment building, his train of thought has gotten him exactly the same place it always does – absolutely nowhere. So he tries to forget about it and just focuses on the task at hand. He keeps his t-shirt on, but swaps his khaki shorts for the swimsuit he manages to locate in the bottom of one of his dresser drawers, then digs up an old beach towel from the linen closet. He tosses his shorts, a pair of boxers, the towel, plus some sunscreen and a hat into an old duffel bag, shoves his feet into a pair of flip-flops and heads back out. He stops at the store on the way, initially grabbing a couple six-packs and a bottle of wine, but then recalls Rufus' mention of his brother and the potential crowd of 17-year-olds. So he sticks with just one six-pack, and grabs a few bottles of Sprite and Mountain Dew instead.

And beyond that, there's nothing else he can really do to stall, so he's off, following Google Maps to the address that Rufus had texted him. When he arrives, Rufus introduces him to his mother and brother, Kevin, and informs him that Lucy and Jiya are already out in the yard by the pool. He's still not quite sure he's prepared for the sight of a mostly-naked Lucy, so he offers to help Rufus' mom in the kitchen, where it looks like she's prepping some salads. But, of course, she just thanks him and shoos him away.

When he finally steps out onto the patio, he's immediately regretting wasting time inside. Jiya's just finishing slathering sunscreen over Lucy's back and, for as much as he's been half-dreading what the sight of Lucy like that would do to him, he's paradoxically wishing he'd been the one to get to touch all that bare skin.

Because bare skin, there more certainly _is_. She did _not_ go for the high-necked racing suit or long sleeve shirt, not by a long shot. A quick visual assessment tells him that Jiya's green bikini is actually a little more revealing and string-based than Lucy's, especially considering she's a little curvier than Lucy too, but that hardly matters; Lucy is stunning in her slightly more modest blue and white stripes, and he's actually having a little trouble with the breathing thing that he's supposed to be doing. Wyatt manages to distract himself from that fact by looking away from her, tossing his bag to the side, kicking off his shoes, and tugging his shirt over his head before sitting to apply his own sunblock. Which actually does prove to be a good distraction, at least at first, because he's half done before he notices that Lucy has crossed the patio to stand just in front of him.

"Need help reaching your back?" she asks, sounding innocent enough.

Wyatt just gapes up at her for a second, but nods numbly and hands over the bottle. She sits next to him on the couch, and nudges him to turn away from her. He jumps a second later when her hands make contact with his back, and he could probably blame it on the cold lotion, but really, he knows better than that.

His eyes fall closed and his head lolls forward as she works her palms over him, and on one hand, he doesn't ever want her to stop. On the other, he's grateful that she's almost finished because much longer and he's really going to need some help from the cold pool water.

And then she is done, and announces as much to him with a little slap on the back as she stands up to head over to where Rufus and Jiya are already standing at the edge of the pool.

Jiya jumps right in without any fanfare, and Rufus looks poised to do the same until Jiya comes up for air next to a bug and insists that Rufus get the skimmer net to get it out of the water. Lucy, meanwhile, is hovering over by the stairs to the shallow end, barely dipping her toes in.

Wyatt approaches her, eyebrows questioning.

"It's cold," she replies, sounding a little pathetic.

With a laugh, Wyatt teases her in response, "You were the one all ready to go to Antarctica."

She rolls her eyes as she tries to stifle a laugh. "Yeah," she counters, "and I would have had a snowsuit on. And boots."

Out of the corner of his eye, Wyatt can see that Rufus has just succeeded in removing the floating insect from the water, and he can hear some lame joke about 'debugging' and computers. And between Lucy being reluctant to get in the water, and him being a little reluctant to give up on that skin-to-skin contact he'd just been lucky enough to have when she was putting sunscreen on his back, he knows what he has to do.

Before she can protest, he scoops her up and heads for the deep end of the pool. She squeals, and squirms a little in protest in his arms, but mostly she's laughing, even as he launches her into the air.

He and Rufus and Jiya, and even Kevin, from back over on the patio, are all still laughing when Lucy surfaces, spluttering and wiping the water and stray locks of hair from her face.

"You're gonna pay for that," she warns, though she's smiling as she says it.

A shriek of a laugh from Jiya is the only thing that alerts Wyatt to the fact that said payback was coming a little faster than he'd anticipated and that it wasn't coming from Lucy herself. Before he can even whirl halfway around to try to defend himself, Rufus has barreled into him, sending him careening into the water with an awkward splash.

Wyatt's back up to the surface just in time to get a faceful of water as Rufus cannonballs in after the rest of them.

Kevin's friends will be over later, and because the four of them have so little carefree time these days, they take advantage of the still otherwise empty pool and launch into a game of Marco Polo as if they're all ten years old. (Though Jiya cheeky suggestion of switching the name of the game to either Flynn's or Emma's given their lack of success in ever really catching either one does not go over well with the Time Trio.)

And if Wyatt is purposely slow to dodge when Lucy's the one coming after him, sue him. He can't bring himself to really try and escape when she's launching herself at him, all splashes and lanky limbs. She does get him pretty quickly, and she opens her eyes in delight when she's got her arms looped around his neck, his around her waist, as they float there.

He's almost convinced she's going to lean down and kiss him, but then she just grins, declaring, "You're it."

When that gets a little tired, Rufus takes it upon himself to provide the next round of entertainment by ducking under the water next to Jiya, only to pop back up with her perched precariously on his shoulders.

To Lucy, that's apparently a wordless invitation to climb onto Wyatt, because a beat later, she's less than gracefully shoving him below the water surface by his shoulders while simultaneously nearly kicking him in the head. More than once. But Wyatt manages to get her situated, and is really thankful that she and Jiya start playfully warring almost immediately, because if he thinks too hard about the fact that Lucy has literally wrapped her legs around his head, he might have heart attack right there in the pool.

If you'd asked him, and not that he'd have admitted it, but this is hardly how Wyatt would have imagined ending up between Lucy's thighs for the first time.

Then again, he acquiesces to himself with a wry grin as he grips Lucy's legs tighter to keep her from toppling over, the first time he'd seen her shirt off was in a jail cell within hours of meeting. The first time she'd taken _his_ shirt off, it had still been within a couple days of meeting, and he'd been _shot_. Why the hell wouldn't the first time he gets anywhere close to this kind of proximity with her be in the middle of a game of chicken in the pool at Rufus' mother's house with a growing crowd of high schoolers as an audience?

Given that Wyatt and Lucy are both taller than Rufus and Jiya, respectively, even with her general lack of coordination, Lucy manages to take Jiya down rather quickly. Rufus immediately demands a rematch, insisting on best of three, and then best of five when Jiya tumbles down with another splash. On the third go-round, things get messy and all four of them somehow end up in a tangled mess in the water. Rufus catches someone's foot, or knee, or elbow, in the jaw, after which Jiya insists on taking him inside to put some ice on it.

"Does that mean we won?" Lucy asks with a smirk from where she's treading water next to him. "'Cause I-" She stops short in the middle of the sentence to grab at his arm and drag him closer to her, and he's really really curious as to why she'd do that. Or at least he is until he hears and feels a splash from uncomfortably close to where he'd just been located. "Jeez," she mutters, still clinging to his arm.

The kid offers a halfhearted "Sorry, man" when he's back above the surface, but given that it had forced him closer to Lucy, Wyatt's not about to hold the ill-advised jump against the kid.

"I think we're officially being invaded by teenagers," Lucy murmurs, still tantalizingly close. And a quick scan of the yard confirms that Kevin's friends have indeed started to arrive in droves, with a significant proportion of them already following the other kid's example and hopping into the pool.

"You wanna get out?" Wyatt offers reluctantly, not really relishing the idea of leaving the water, which has been offering plenty of welcome opportunities to brush up against her here and there.

He's exceedingly grateful that she shakes her head, smiling, and gestures for him to follow as she swims around the crowd of teens toward the stairs she'd been starting to tiptoe down when they'd first arrived. "We can just sit here," she says, nodding her head at the steps. "It's too hot to get out."

"Says the woman who would barely put one foot in," he chides her with a smirk as he moves to take a seat on whichever step will leave him with pretty much just his head out of the water. Once he's found the right one, he moves to slide over toward the edge of the pool to give her room to sit as well, but he's surprised, and pleased, to find that she's apparently forgoing an actual seat on the steps to just sort of float in a sideways seated position, half in front of him, half between his legs, anchoring herself by looping her arm around his bent knee. No way is he going to complain about that arrangement. And if it means one of his hands ends up resting on the arm she's got on his leg, so be it. Same for his other hand, which ends up by his other knee behind her, half floating, half caressing her bare back under the water.

With Lucy almost in his arms, the heat of the sun beating down, the waves of the pool lapping at his shoulders, the effect is nearly trance-like, and before long, Wyatt feels his eyes slipping closed.

He must have actually fallen asleep, because the next thing he's aware of is Jiya crouching at the edge of the pool next to him, poking him in the shoulder and wearing a smug grin.

"Come on, sleeping beauties, you must be hungry," she teases with a wide grin. "I've got the grill on and Rufus and his mom are bringing out drinks and other stuff."

Wyatt blinks at her in the bright sun, nodding. It's only then that he realizes that Lucy is no longer floating in that sort-of-between-his-legs space, she's on his lap, her arms loosely looped around his waist and her head on his shoulder as the water still laps around them. No wonder Jiya had practically looked like the Cheshire Cat.

Not that that means he isn't immensely enjoying his discovery of Lucy's new seating arrangement. Still, they've been summoned. Plus, even under the water, her shoulders are starting to look the slightest bit pink, and probably in need of another round of sunblock. So as much as Wyatt wants to stay there with her, he reluctantly tries to nudge her awake. "Luce…"

"I heard," she replies almost immediately, sounding far more awake than she looks. "I just didn't want to move," she admits, opening her eyes and lifting her head from his shoulder. Peering at him through squinted eyes, she shoots him a soft smile and then runs her thumb over his cheek. "But you are looking a little red," she informs him. "You should put on more sunscreen."

Wyatt just nods and goes along with it, helping her stand up to climb out of the pool. He doesn't bother to point out to her that he's been facing away from the sun and the pink is just him being stupidly flustered by the notion of her in his lap and smiling at him.

Not that that stops him from obediently sitting in front of her when she approaches him, a towel wrapped around her waist and tube of sunscreen in hand. He closes his eyes and lets her rub the lotion on his face, lets her slather his back again. This time, Jiya is still manning the grill, so he gets the honor of taking care of her back. If he goes particularly slow, taking care to get cover every last square inch of skin, from the waist of her bikini bottom to under the straps of her top, massaging it into her shoulders, well, who cares? Not Lucy, he surmises, almost sure he hears a little whimper of protest when he finally stops and pulls his hands away from her back.

But Jiya is waving a plate of something at them from across the patio, so Wyatt reluctantly slides away from Lucy and finishes the far less exciting task of putting sunscreen on his own chest, arms, and stomach.

He gets a plate, eats obediently as he keeps Rufus company by the blazing hot grill when he switches with Jiya to give her a break. Food has drawn the hordes of teens over from the pool, so suddenly the patio is more crowded than Wyatt would like, because he can't seem to locate Lucy anywhere. He freezes sheepishly when Rufus, with a sly grin on his face, catches him searching. He's grateful that Rufus doesn't push it any further than that; whatever is or isn't going on with Lucy today, Wyatt wants to figure it out for himself before any commentary from the peanut gallery.

Lucy and Jiya do make an appearance again not long after that, helping Rufus' mom carry out boxes of popsicles for all of Kevin's friends. Wyatt almost chokes on the last of his cheeseburger when he sees that Lucy has snagged one of the extras. She's not even doing anything particularly indecent with it, but it's still a popsicle and all kinds of suggestive, and Wyatt has to look away before his brain gets the better of his body and leaves him in dire need of a jump into the cold pool again.

The crowd dwindles a little once the food is gone – to be expected from a mob of teenage boys, so the four of them do end up back in the water after a while, this time with the beverages for the not-under-21 crowd that Wyatt had brought. Less of the horsing around, more just talking about anything and everything that wasn't work, because most days, that's all they did get to talk about.

At some point, the soda he'd had with the food and the two beers in the pool catch up to Wyatt and he has to duck into the house to find the bathroom. With that taken care of, he finds Rufus' mom in the kitchen, and this time doesn't take no for an answer, helping her do some dishes and put away the few leftovers.

When he finally heads back out onto the patio, it's that point in the late afternoon that's just on the tipping point between all golden-y yellow light and the pinker, purple tones of impending sunset. Kevin and the friends that are still there, for some godforsaken reason considering it had to still be 100 degrees out, have started a fire in the fire pit in the back corner of the yard, and Wyatt can see chocolate bars and bags of marshmallows being tossed around.

There are also still quite a few kids down at one end of the pool, and Wyatt's gaze automatically seeks Lucy out among them. But she's not down that end. More toward the middle of the pool, he sees Rufus and Jiya wrapped around each other, probably a going a little too far given the audience of minors, but who's he to judge? But still no Lucy.

And then he spots her, in almost the same place as they'd sat earlier in the afternoon. She's on the steps, leaning her head against the railing on the side of the stairs. And she hasn't been under the water for a while, so her messy hairdo has left her with soft, curly wisps framing her face and tumbling down onto her neck, so she looks all sorts of beautiful in the colors of the approaching sunset. And part of it is the wistful expression on her face, but Wyatt's heart aches a little when he follows her gaze back to Rufus and Jiya.

He doesn't really know any details about her past relationships, whatever they were, but at the very least he's been able to gather that she hadn't had anyone in her life like that for at least a few years, not since before her mother got so sick. Before that, he figures there was someone, or a few someones. Maybe even a lot of them, who knows. She doesn't really seem like anything but a long-term, serious relationship kind of person to him, but he supposes that anyone can be different when they're younger. But now? Even before… _things_ started happening between them, little indications popped up here and there – the kids she wanted to read history books to, trying to make something work with the doctor guy even though she didn't know him, the envy in her voice that she tried to hide when talking about the bond Bonnie and Clyde seemed to have. And now that wistful wanting as she watches their friends from across the pool. She wants that, something _real_ , for herself.

Wyatt wants to be that for her so badly in that moment that it hurts. He _has_ to just take the leap. But not here, he knows. Not with a dozen high-schoolers still running around, not at their friend's mother's house. But soon.

Still, even in the absence of any grand sweeping declarations of his intentions for the time being, he doesn't like the sight of her looking all pensive and alone. So he snags her towel from where she'd left it near her bag and heads over to the pool. He forces a smile onto his face and clears his throat. "I think they've got s'mores down there," he informs her. "You want?"

The wistful melancholy is thankfully gone when she smiles up at him. "Sure," she grins, nodding and accepting the hand that he offers to help her stand up. He holds out her towel to wrap around her, and once she has it secured over her shoulders, Wyatt, feeling a little emboldened, slips his arm around her waist to guide her over toward the fire pit.

She manages to drop the first marshmallow into the dirt before she even gets it on the skewer that one of the kids hands them. The second, she completely ignites almost instantaneously and Wyatt has to keep her from accidentally flinging a flaming projectile into the trees or someone's lap. When she reaches for third, Wyatt just eyes her skeptically. She gives a sheepish nod and points over her shoulder with her thumb, "Yeah, I'm just gonna…"

Wyatt smiles, watching perhaps a little longer than necessary as she retreats back to the chairs on the patio. But then he loads up a skewer with 4 marshmallows and gets to work on achieving the perfect toasty brown. Unlike Lucy, he manages it on the first try, and before long, he's hurrying over toward her to deliver them while still melty and gooey. One is a little more precariously clinging to the skewer than the other three, so he cups his hand under it for the imminent fall. Fall it does, just as he's easing into the seat next to Lucy on the couch. So suddenly, he's got a sugary mess in the fingertips of one hand and a skewer full of more impending disaster in the other. He looks back over his shoulder, scanning the table where the food had been to see if there were any napkins still laying around. "Lucy," he begins absently, "do you see any napk-"

And then he feels her grip his wrist. His eyes are off the table and back on her immediately. And then her lips are around the marshmallow, which means they were also, by default, on his fingers. He's frozen, his jaw slack as he watches her, and then he feels her tongue on his thumb and he almost dies. He's pretty sure he is dead, because then she's sucking on his finger, and is this really happening? He's almost not sure, because a split second later, she's sitting up straight again and letting go of his wrist, instead innocently reaching for the skewer with the other three marshmallows. And then she just sits there and slides the next one off and pops it into her own mouth as if that same mouth hadn't just been wrapped around Wyatt's finger.

He blinks himself out of his stupor when he sees her smile at something over his shoulder. He turns around to see Rufus and Jiya approaching with their own skewer of toasted marshmallows, plus another couple bags of untoasted ones.

"You guys ever play 'Chubby Bunny'?" asks Jiya, giggling as she flops down in one of the chairs across from the couch and Rufus heads into the house. "They're doing it back there," she says, gesturing to where all the teens had now gathered by the fire. "I figure we can too, but turn it into a drinking game."

Wyatt rolls his eyes; he's played it before, what seems a lifetime ago. But Rufus is already returning with a bottle of cheap rum and a roll of paper towels, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any way out of playing it again, right now. At least it might take his mind off the fact that Lucy had been quite literally sucking on his finger not five minutes ago.

"When you're out," Rufus declares, flopping down in the chair next to Jiya's, "you do a shot for each marshmallow that the rest of the players can still add."

Jiya laughs excitedly, but Lucy nudges Wyatt's knee and leans in, sounding like she's only half joking, "Please don't let me die of alcohol poisoning right now."

It ends up that Jiya's the one closest to being in any danger of that. She's out first, hit with a fit of giggles when she's not even that many marshmallows in, but she (wisely) chooses failure over choking and spits the lot of them into her paper towel. She dutifully does her shots as the other three keep up with each other round after round.

Lucy caves next, but just before she does, Wyatt finds himself musing over the fact that she shouldn't look so attractive with her cheeks puffed to the limit and marshmallow-y drool slipping out of one corner of her mouth, but somehow she manages it. But similar to Jiya, something about shoving yet another marshmallow into her face gets her giggling and then she's gagging her marshmallows out into a paper towel too. And still, she's laughing. Both she and Jiya dissolve into peals of laughter, Lucy collapsing against Wyatt on the couch despite being well behind Jiya in terms of alcohol ingested. When the laughs finally slow, Lucy's fully laying on the couch, tears in her eyes, and her head on Wyatt's thigh as she grins up at him.

And then she reaches up and pokes him in the cheek.

It's all he can do not to spit the stupid marshmallows all over her. But she got him; he's cracking up the same as the women were, and it's out with the marshmallows.

While Rufus celebrates his triumph, Wyatt halfheartedly scolds Lucy. "I could have beaten him, you know. You screwed me up," he pouts.

Lucy grins as she pulls herself up to sit again, though she's leaning heavily against Wyatt's side this time. Not that he minds in the least. "Oh, let him have his moment," she laughs, looking over at Rufus, still stuffing more marshmallows in his mouth to see how many he can actually fit.

When Rufus finally hits his limit, both Wyatt and Lucy obediently do a few punitive shots, though not quite as many as Rufus is trying to insist on. And Rufus imbibes as well, just to catch up to the rest of them.

Hilarity behind them and the alcohol starting to lull them into a comfortable buzz, the foursome just sits there for a bit.

But it's still hot. Like still 90 degrees or more even though the sun has gone down. Wyatt's pretty sure he understands why weather like this is described as sultry; it makes you sweaty and tired, just like sex does. Though not exactly as satisfied and content as sex does, unfortunately.

He's definitely less than content with the current weather, and Wyatt can tell that Lucy is uncomfortable too, just starting to shift against him and fan at her face with her hand. He nudges her with his shoulder. "Pool?"

She gives him a lazy smile and nods, peeling off the towel she still has wrapped around her legs like a skirt.

Wyatt and the others follow her over. He has the fleeting notion that he could toss her in again, but like she's reading his mind, she eyes him over her shoulder and jumps in before he can get close enough. He follows suit before Rufus can get any ideas.

Of course, Rufus gets _other_ ideas. Still riding his chubby bunny champion high (not to mention a decent amount of rum), he's finding it amusing to sneak up behind Wyatt and Jiya to try and dunk them. He gets each of them twice, though not Lucy for some reason, and Wyatt's on the defensive the next time he feels someone touch his shoulders from behind.

But it's thin pale arms that loop around his neck and torso, not Rufus' dark, strong ones. "I'm protecting you," Lucy informs Wyatt, her lips brushing his ear as she leans over his shoulder. The feel of that, coupled with her body pressed to his back, her legs locking around his hips, is almost too much and Wyatt almost misses the rest of her explanation. "He's not trying to get me; I think he's scared of me," she snickers conspiratorially in his ear.

She's not wrong; Rufus pretty much gives up after that and they all end up just kind of floating aimlessly for a while. Though Lucy doesn't let go of Wyatt, and he's not about to complain.

As has been the cycle nearly all day, the kids start to drift back toward the pool too, and Rufus and Jiya start getting cozy again, so Wyatt nods questioningly back toward the empty patio. From on his back, Lucy hums her agreement in his ear.

They drip their way back over to the same patio couch they've had claimed since arriving, and as soon as Wyatt gets his towel around his shoulders and sits, Lucy does the same with her towel and curls up next to him with her head on his bare chest.

He's not even questioning it anymore; things are happening and he's more than ok with it.

She lets out a tired sigh and he can just see enough of her face to see her eyes flutter closed. He's not surprised – between the heat, the swimming, the alcohol, he had to figure they were all going to crash hard at some point. He feels himself on the edge of dozing too, but, even though it's hardly cold, the breeze has picked up a bit, so he uses the arm not wrapped around Lucy's shoulder to pull his towel from around himself to drape over her legs.

Before he nods off, Wyatt lets his hand wander up to her hair and ever so carefully feels for what's holding it up in the twisty-knot-thing. He's glad to feel his fingers hit hard plastic instead of one of those tangly rubber band things. He works the clip open gently, letting her damp hair spill out in waves over her shoulders. He passes that to his other hand so he can rest it on the table beside the couch, and then he closes his eyes as his fingers softly comb through Lucy's hair.

That's the last thing he remembers before he blinks awake to the sight of Rufus's mom cleaning up stray bags of marshmallows and other random leftovers.

He immediately goes to apologize for having still been asleep in her backyard, but she hushes him before he can get a word out. "There's no rush," she assures him. "The kids have all left, and Rufus just left to drive Jiya home, but we didn't want to wake you. You don't have to get up."

Wyatt nods at her appreciatively, but Lucy is already stirring from where she's slumped down even further in her sleep.

He's tempted to lean down and press a kiss to the top of her head, but he second guesses himself and figures maybe she should be completely awake before he goes for something like that. Instead, he runs his hand over her hair again. "Luce," he whispers, "we should go."

She's pretty much breathtaking when she blinks awake and gives him a sleepy smile, hair now dry and all soft and curly around her face. Wyatt wants to wake up to that sight every morning.

But it's not morning, and they're not in either of their beds, and they're not even together anyway (yet, Wyatt tells himself. _Yet_.) But they are still lurking on the patio of Rufus' mother's house, probably well after ten or eleven at night, if the fact that teenagers have been sent home already was any indication.

So both he and Lucy haul themselves up off the couch. Wyatt reaches for his bag, pulling out the t-shirt he'd worn for the drive over and tugging it on over his head. He balls up the towel that had been covering Lucy's legs and shoves that in the bag with his sunscreen. He steps into his flip-flops and makes sure he has his keys, and he's ready to go.

He turns to Lucy, who appears equally as ready to go, having pulled a sundress on over her swimsuit and donned those same flip-flops that were dangling from her toes back what felt like a million years ago at Mason Industries that morning.

Wyatt, as he so often does, in both the present day and on their missions to the past, steps aside and reaches out an arm to guide her to walk in front of him.

Lucy, as she's _never_ done before, ignores the intent of his gesture and takes the hand he's holding out, weaving her fingers through his. She leans against their linked hands, nudging him into heading into the house before her.

He's a little dumbfounded, but again, not about to complain.

Once inside, they thank Rufus' mother profusely for allowing them to invade her house and swimming pool. She waves off their thanks, instead just saying how glad she is to finally meet Rufus' co-workers, and then complimenting them on what a wonderful couple they are. Wyatt flushes and uses his free hand to bashfully scratch behind his ear while he thinks of some way to explain that they're not, but Lucy just smiles and thanks her before heading toward the front door.

They're barely onto the porch when Lucy tugs on his hand. "Wait here," she instructs cryptically. "I'll be right back." And she darts back into the house and Wyatt's not sure what to think.

But she's true to her word, and it has to be less than twenty seconds before she's emerging from the house again, wearing a bit of a smile and threading her fingers through his again.

They make their way quietly together across the lawn to where they're both parked along the street and Wyatt's realizing that the last thing he wants to do right now is get in separate cars to drive to separate apartments. It has to be now.

They're just coming to a stop at his car when he finally works up the nerve, beginning "Luce, I-"

She cuts him off by pressing her lips to his. That's really all it is at first because Wyatt is almost too stunned to respond. She'd beaten him to it.

Lucy pulls away ever so slightly, bracing herself with one hand on his shoulder as she wobbles on her tiptoes. But then she leans up and does it again, this time tugging ever so slightly on his lower lip.

It's like that's somehow all it takes to spur him into motion. He lets his duffel bag slip off his shoulder onto the lawn and does the same for Lucy's tote bag, easing the strap off her shoulder, all the while managing never to break the kiss.

Free of bags, he's now focused solely on her, and he pulls her body flush to his and lets her insistent tongue slip between his lips.

It's like the whole day has been – long, and slow, and lazy, and hot, and dare he say, sultry. It's everything he didn't want in the weather, but everything he wanted with her.

Before long, he's leaning back against the side of his Jeep, pulling her with him between his slightly spread legs.

They do, eventually, have to come up for air – a thought that has Wyatt mentally chuckling given his own words as they'd waited out Bonnie and Clyde – and he feels like he's falling for her all over again when he sees the grin on her face and her lips all red and shiny and kiss-swollen.

"Before, um, _this_ ," she asks coyly, "what were you going to say?"

Wyatt drops his chin to his chest with a self-deprecating chuckle. "Pretty much what you did," he admits, "but I think you said it better than I was going to."

She smirks and then runs her hand over his chest, staring there as her expression grows a little more serious. "I'm just glad someone did."

He reaches to nudge her chin up so she's looking him in the eye again. "Me too."

They melt into another kiss, and for the first time he's been in this situation all day, Wyatt doesn't have to worry about the proximity of cold pools to help him out.

Lucy leans back again, her hips still pressed against his as she breathes heavily. "Rufus' mom said we can leave a car parked here," she informs him. "I asked."

Wyatt grins and pulls her in for another kiss, glad to hear she'd pretty much been planning the same end to the night as he'd been hoping for.

They leave her car. His apartment has slightly better air conditioning.

(Yes, Rufus will see the car. No, they don't care.)

 **~FIN~**

* * *

 **Well, that 'short' piece got out of hand. Really, I just wanted them all hot and bothered and sweaty and cute and adorable and in a pool in skimpy bathing suits. More of it happened than initially planned. So sue me.** ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	2. Lucy

**Because Amazon told me yesterday morning that my Timeless DVD has shipped! *confetti* :D And now the USPS tells me that it's already waiting in my mailbox TODAY, a whole day early! *more confetti* :D**

 **And because Lucy's POV wouldn't stop asking to be written.**

 **Minimal editing again, sorry. Also possibly entirely nonsensical.**

 **(I promise I'm still working on Timing. And another fic project. Pinky swear. But also work. For my job. Which I'm going to go do now… Until I can escape and go watch my shiny new DVD set!)**

* * *

Lucy grimaces as she trudges up the stairs at Mason Industries. She'd almost been looking forward to following Emma to wherever it was that she'd jumped; anywhere has to be cooler than here. And as she climbs higher, she can already feel the oppressiveness of the air increasing. The air conditioning system here clearly isn't faring any better against the record-breaking heat than the sad little AC unit in her apartment is. While shooing her upstairs to wait, Agent Christopher had assured her that there is a fan in one of the rooms upstairs where Wyatt was already waiting. Delta Force or not, Lucy is resolved to fight him for that lone fan if he tries to hog it.

But just as she's in the midst of that thought, Rufus flies around the corner at the top of the stairs, fan in hand, and nearly bowls her over on his race down.

Her shoulders slump even further in resignation.

"Rufus," she calls after him. "Is that the fan Wyatt had?"

His affirmative reply rings echoes up the stairs. "If he bitches about it, tell him we needed it to help ventilate the computers."

Lucy smirks at the wording, but also has to wonder why Rufus couldn't have just told Wyatt that himself.

In any case, now she's well aware that she's facing an indefinite period of uncomfortably muggy limbo before they can jump anywhere, and sans fan at that. And because no one had bothered to let her know of the computer cooling issues on her way in, she'd reluctantly skipped stopping somewhere to get a cold drink in favor of arriving quickly. Fat lot of good that had done her.

So, knowing that the small refrigerator in the employee break room never has the ice cube trays filled, she reverses course on the stairs and heads for the infirmary. Thankfully, the nurse on duty is just as uncomfortable as she is, and willingly hands over a small plastic bag of ice from the machine they keep full in case of injuries.

Bag in hand, Lucy heads back towards the stairs; a quick glance in the direction of the lifeboat as she passes reveals a whole lot of still-frantic scientists. With a sigh, she continues further up the stairs.

There's a reason she's stayed in San Francisco for most of her life and, _no_ , she tells the little voice in her head that sounds a lot like Amy, it isn't all because she's been trying to live up to their mother. The weather here is _nice_. It never gets too hot.

Except today. And yesterday.

What she wouldn't give to be back in the winter of that year she'd spent in Chicago for a post-doc. Lucy so prefers the cozy sweaters and scarves of sub-freezing temperatures to the practically indecent outfit that she'd been forced to throw on today. It wasn't-

Her train of thought comes to a screeching halt when she rounds the corner to the doorway of the waiting room.

Well, she supposes that would be why Rufus hadn't told him about the fan himself.

Either asleep or something close to it, Wyatt is slumped down in the exact same chair he was in that first, fateful night when they'd both been dragged here. And he's doing that _thing_ that guys always seem to do, that reaching up under their shirt to scratch or rub at their stomach or chest or whatever, and it's pushing up the hem of his t-shirt, putting the defined lines of his muscles on full display, along with a peek of boxers above the waist of his khaki cargo shorts.

Lucy has to swallow hard. It's not as if she hasn't seen him in even less, all the way back to helping him remove his shirt after getting shot in 1865. But it's different, this, the casualness of it all, now back in their own time. Normally, he's not only in long pants and long sleeves, but multiple layers of long sleeves. And a jacket.

He shifts in his sleep and the shirt falls back into place, paradoxically to both Lucy's chagrin and relief. Though it does give her the opportunity to let her gaze rake over the rest of him – the strong biceps and forearms extending from the short sleeves of the t-shirt, the toned calves exposed by the shorts she'd never seen him wear before, his feet bare aside from the leather flipflops– Lucy shakes her head at that as she forces herself to actually head into the room; not that she has a foot fetish or anything, but seriously? Even his feet are perfect? Of _course_ he's attractive, but her feelings for him run significantly deeper than that these days. Still, the sight of him like that in the chair… She's not _dead._ If she were a little more bold (ok, a _lot_ more bold), like Amy maybe, a little more sure of where he was regarding those once-mentioned possibilities, a little more sure of herself, she might be tempted to follow through on the urge she's currently feeling to just crawl onto his lap and push that t-shirt up herself, among other things.

But she can't do that. She's not that bold and she's _really_ not that sure of where he stands on those possibilities.

She actually contemplates just removing herself from the temptation entirely by relocating to a conference room instead, but both Christopher and Rufus are both expecting her to be in the same place as Wyatt, and it's too hot for her brain to come up with any sort of plausible explanation for ending up in a different room. She doesn't think 'because he looks too good' is something she's willing to offer up as an excuse.

So she reluctantly creeps over to the couch across from him. Maybe he has the right idea – sleeping might help take her mind off both the uncomfortable weather and the sight of him.

Lowering herself gingerly to sit on the couch, she can't help but smirk at the sticky feel of the leather on the back of her thighs. She doubts it will, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if her warm-weather wear has even half the effect on him as his does on her. So she lies down, resting the ice on her collarbone, and if she happens to nudge up the fabric of her tank top to reveal her stomach, mimicking the state of his shirt when she'd walked in, so be it.

She manages to doze for a little while, but is pulled from her sleepy daze by a sudden groan, followed by an uncharacteristically whiny "Rufus, where'd the fan go?" from Wyatt's side of the room.

"They needed it downstairs," she informs him, suppressing a smile even as she keeps her eyes closed in an attempt to ward off the reality of what seems to be even higher temperatures than when she'd fallen asleep. "To try and help keep the computers cool," she adds.

He doesn't reply, but honestly, it really is hotter and it's miserable, so she kind of doesn't care if Wyatt heard her or not. Her ice is on its last legs, which means she's going to have to move at some point soon if she wants more and she really doesn't feel like moving.

Curiously, Wyatt _does_ cough and thank her a few minutes later, which strikes Lucy as a little strange, but right about the same time, there's a noise in the direction of the door.

Reluctantly opening her eyes, Lucy sees Rufus hovering in the doorway. "Mothership's back in the present," he declares. "We're off the hook."

Lucy winces, her body tensing automatically at the thought of what havoc Emma might have wreaked without them being able to chase her and at least try to mitigate the situation. "Ugh," she groans. "What did she do that we now don't even know about?" But even the slight movement reminds her that the heat has her stuck fast to the leather of the couch and everything is disgusting and it's just plain miserable. "You know what?" she amends, letting her limbs go slack again and re-adjusting the ice on her chest, "I don't even care. It's too hot."

Wyatt echoes her complaint with a grumbled "Seriously", but before she can look over at him to commiserate, she's struck with a brilliant thought, if she does say so herself.

Already feeling a little invigorated by the prospect of her idea possibly working out, she stretches, working out the tight kinks that the too-short couch has left her with, then sets her sights on Rufus, still in the doorway.

She grins widely at him. "Rufus?" she asks innocently.

He chuckles in Wyatt's direction for some reason as he responds, "Uh huh?"

Curious, Lucy steals a peek at Wyatt, but nothing jumps out at her as out of the ordinary, so she re-focuses on Rufus.

"What are the odds we can take the lifeboat on a little unplanned excursion?" she suggests, that frigid winter she'd spent in Chicago taunting her from her memory. "Like maybe the first successful expedition to the South Pole? Klondike Gold Rush?" But the more she hears herself, the more she knows what Rufus is going to say. But that doesn't stop her from deteriorating into a pleading whine, not all that different from Wyatt's tone earlier. "Anywhere cold? Please?"

He just laughs at her and snarks, "Sure, let's go hang with the Donner Party. I hear they were super fun."

Of course he picks that to throw back in her face, so she has to narrow her eyes at him. And of course Wyatt apparently finds her misery amusing, he laughs at her. She glares at him too; looking good in shorts and a t-shirt doesn't get him out of that. At least she must look vaguely menacing, because neither one of them say anything else.

Knowing it's futile, Lucy still takes advantage of the pause in conversation to relay one final plea. "Somewhere cold?" she begs. "Anywhere?"

With a shrug, Rufus shakes his head. "No can do, sorry. The heat still has some of the CPUs on the fritz," he explains apologetically.

Lucy squeezes her eyes shut with a whimpered sigh. So much for that bright idea. Now she's going to have to actually move. And go home. Or something. If she could muster up the energy. Not that the temperature would be any better there. Though at least Wyatt won't be there, looking all too tempting in his casual clothes.

Rufus pipes up again then, as if he knows where her mind had gone. Not the Wyatt part, thankfully, the home part. "Why don't you just go home?" he asks, sounding confused. "You have AC."

"Barely," she scowls, finally giving in and moving to sit. The bag of melted ice slips of her chest and she's a little horrified to see that she'd gone a little too far in her ill-advised attempt to tease Wyatt with some bare skin; she'd gone and exposed her actual bra to _both_ of her work partners, the same bra that she hadn't even bothered to properly match to the shirt as she'd hurried out of her apartment. She nudges the fabric back into place over her stomach, hoping that she's not blushing too obviously as she elaborates about her air conditioning. "I practically had to sit on it yesterday to feel anything."

Of course that just brings to mind the fleeting impulse she'd had earlier to sit on _Wyatt_ , and she feels her cheeks grow even hotter. These things are why she should never bother with trying to flirt, or even bother letting herself think about Wyatt in that context; she's horrible at this sort of thing.

Thankfully, he doesn't seem to notice that anything is amiss with her and actually backs up her assertion about her miserably ineffective air conditioning. "My place is the same, man," he echoes to Rufus.

Rufus eyes them both sympathetically and shrugs. "My mom's place has good AC," he informs them. "And a pool. Jiya and I are going to head over. You guys are welcome to come too. We can barbecue if someone can stand the grill long enough to cook stuff. Might have to deal with my brother and bunch of other high school seniors, but if your places are that bad-"

Lucy doesn't even let him get the whole invitation out before she's on her feet, blurting out her acceptance. "I'm in," she declares, the temptation of a pool overriding any other thoughts aside fromensuring that she gets her foot back in the flipflop that had fallen off at some point during her nap.

She's halfway out the door behind Rufus before she realizes the error of her ways. Though Wyatt hasn't made a move to follow them yet, Rufus has invited both of them. Which means more of Wyatt. Or more precisely, more of Wyatt not covered by clothing, if he actually plans on swimming too. Taking a shaky breath, Lucy forces herself to turn back to face him and ask politely, "You coming?"

She half hopes he'll say no, but he's nodding in the affirmative pretty quickly, and Lucy's stomach is in knots before the four of them even make it to the parking lot. At least it's established that her place is on the way, but Wyatt's is not, so she doesn't have to figure out a reason to try and get out of sharing a ride.

It's kind of been torture, these last few months. Not the time travel missions – ok, well, yes, they're their own brand of torture for her; she's still not used to having to be anything but the relay-er of historical facts at the front of the classroom full of bored freshmen. But at least on the missions, there's something else to focus on. Emma, Rittenhouse, her mother, _something._ Something that's not Wyatt and that conversation about possibilities that hasn't been brought up since.

But when they have down time like this? When, if you squint hard enough, the three of them and Jiya could almost be mistaken for a regular group of friends and not government consultants racing through time to try and take down a historical conspiracy? It's hard. It's hard to have these feelings and have no idea where he stands. She could have sworn he'd been about to kiss her in the hallway that day, but they'd been interrupted and everything had gone crazy, and the longer it goes since then, the more she's able to convince herself that it was just a figment of her overactive imagination, that he's still in love with Jessica, and why would he ever be interested in his know-it-all co-worker anyway? But then there are still those little moments, every once in a while, where he says something, or does something, or just looks at her, and then she's wondering all over again if maybe there is something there. For him. For her, well, she knows there's something. The worst part is that she knows exactly what she could, should, might even _would_ be doing to figure it all out if she still had Amy there to talk her out of her own head. She needs to just _talk_ to Wyatt, confront him about… everything. And Lucy well knows that her impulsive little sister would have been pushing her to do exactly that. But Amy isn't there, now is she?

Lucy pulls up to her apartment, still unsettled about the prospect of the afternoon facing her. A few minutes later, as much as she misses Amy in the big picture, she's smiling at the fact that, right now, she's a little bit glad that Amy's not around. Faced with choosing a swimsuit to put on, she's well aware that, if Amy were there and armed with the knowledge that Wyatt would be around to see whatever suit she ends up in, she'd be raiding her own wardrobe for the skimpiest, smallest, stringiest barely-there scrap of a bikini to lend to Lucy. Lending, with Lucy trying to refuse, because even in the best of situations, she's never really been comfortable in so little. Leftover insecurities from being the too-skinny, pasty-white, flat-chested-for-too-long, straight-A nerd, she knows. But that doesn't mean she's still not more at home in the one-piece suits she wears when she's in a particularly motivated phase and goes to swim laps in the university fitness center than she is in the couple of more modest two-piece suits she does own even in Amy's absence.

She bites her lip and studies her options. And maybe the heat has fried her brain a little because, before she can talk herself out of it, she grabs the striped two-piece that may or may not have a blue in it that looks the same shade as a certain someone's eyes and pulls it on. It's a little easier to not doubt that decision once she's thrown a summery dress on over it. She sticks a towel, sunscreen, and sunglasses in a bag and hurries back out to her car; whatever she feels for Wyatt, and whatever he does or doesn't feel for her, and whatever he'll think of her swimsuit choice, it doesn't really matter at this point. It's still beastly hot and there's still a pool waiting for her at Rufus'.

The Carlins don't actually live all that far from her, so she arrives relatively quickly. Rufus introduces her to his brother and mom, who immediately refuses her offer to help in the kitchen and sends her out to the patio to join Jiya.

Jiya's just finishing applying sunblock, so she greets Lucy with a smile and asks her to get the places on her back that she can't reach. Lucy obliges, then pulls off her dress to do the same. Once she's got herself mostly covered, she asks Jiya to return the favor, only to have her younger friend grin wickedly.

"Sure you don't want to wait for Wyatt to get here?" she teases, even as she takes Lucy's proffered sunscreen tube. Lucy flushes, turning away from Jiya in an attempt to both hide that fact and to silently respond to the question with a resounding no. She's known since their conversation back in the dressing area when Rufus and Wyatt were off running around in 1983 that Jiya might have a hunch about her feelings for Wyatt. Mercifully, though she reminds Lucy at times of Amy, she's proven to be far more subtle and discreet about pushing the issue than Lucy knows Amy would have been. So instead of another comment, Jiya just goes about covering Lucy's back with the sunscreen.

She's nearly done when Wyatt emerges from the house onto the patio. Lucy must be staring as he sets his things down then follows their lead and pulls off his shirt and takes out his own bottle of sunblock, because Jiya leans over her shoulder as she finishes, hissing "Not too late," in her ear. "Go get his back," she urges.

"Oh, no, I ca-" Lucy starts to protest quietly, but Jiya strategically gets up from the rickety lounge chair right at that moment, forcing Lucy to jump to her feet as well to avoid the whole thing flipping over on her.

"Go," Jiya repeats, giving her a small shove before disappearing into the house.

At a loss, Lucy looks around helplessly. On one hand, she can go the cowardly route and duck into the house after Jiya. On the other, she's already gone out on a limb and worn the two-piece, maybe she should just do it. What's the worst that can happen? Wyatt is almost always, if nothing else, unfailingly polite and gentlemanly to her, at least when they're not fighting about the journal or under some other insane stress in the past. So at worst, even if he isn't inclined to those possibilities, she'll put a little sunscreen on his back, probably get her own heart racing from touching him, and then they'd go back to the status quo. And he won't get sunburned.

So she makes her way across the patio and forces herself to squeak out, "Need help reaching your back?"

He just stares up at her for a second, and Lucy's immediately kicking herself for not following Jiya inside instead, but then he's nodding and suddenly she's sitting next to him and his sunscreen bottle is in her hand and she's faced with his broad, smooth back in front of her.

She numbly squeezes some sunscreen into her hand; she's pretty sure that for everything they've been through, the only time they've really touched skin to skin aside from hands was in Arkansas, elbows fighting for space in the tiny twin bed. This feels far more deliberate than that and she's not quite sure what to do with that knowledge. But he's still waiting for the sunscreen, so it's not like she has any option at this point other than to just do it.

So she rubs her hands to disperse the lotion a bit and then tentatively reaches out to lay her hands on his back. She feels him jump, and hopes it's just the chill of the sunblock and not that he's viscerally uncomfortable with her. But then she's rubbing the lotion further, and she's really wishing that there could be some other circumstance in which she got to run her hands over him like this.

She's done all too soon, but it's just as well because a little part of her brain was starting to try to convince her that wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder from behind would be a good idea.

It would not be, which she well knows, so she hops up from the seat and heads for the pool; hopefully the cold water would knock some sense into her.

Except it's _really_ cold. She tests it with her foot at the stairs, wondering how Jiya can possibly have just jumped straight in. It's still roughly a thousand degrees outside, but that doesn't mean she's quite ready for the shock to her system that the water will be.

She's still stalling when Wyatt approaches, a knowing smirk on his face.

"It's cold," she says defensively, knowing how pathetic she sounds.

And of course he laughs at her expense. "You were the one all ready to go to Antarctica."

Lucy scoffs, rolling her eyes a little to try to cover the blush she feels rising again in her cheeks at the now more obvious sight of him in just a swimsuit. Over on the patio, he'd been sitting. Now he was out in the sun, on full display. "Yeah," she protests, trying to come up with something coherent to say, "and I would have had a snowsuit on. And boots."

She's absolutely gobsmacked a minute later when, out of nowhere, Wyatt is literally (and figuratively, she thinks to herself) sweeping her off her feet. A little yelp escapes her mouth involuntarily, but really, her heart is practically thumping out of her chest at the feel of his arms, hands, and chest touching her in all sorts of places that would normally not be exposed as bare skin.

It registers too late what his intentions actually are, given that his touch is so distracting. She lets out a squeal and can't help but laugh when she feels him launch her into the air at the deep end of the pool.

The cold is such a shock that it practically steals her breath, and she's spluttering when she resurfaces to find all eyes on her, everyone laughing at her expense. She plays along, gamely warning Wyatt, "You're gonna pay for that," as she wipes stray wet hairs back towards her hair clip. But really, the only thing she's really disappointed about is the fact that she doesn't have his arms around her anymore. And well, if his touch, not to mention the near-massage that the sunscreen application had turned out to be, had maybe gotten her body to react more than she'd have liked it to, at least now she has the excuse of the freezing cold water for anything that might be noticeable in her swimsuit top.

A laugh bubbles out of her a moment later when Rufus shoves Wyatt into the pool after her, and then cannonballs in too.

They still have the pool to themselves until Kevin's friends show up in a little while, so Rufus persuades them all to play a silly game of Marco Polo, splashing around like little kids. At first, when she's the one hunting for people, she purposely goes for Rufus and Jiya, trying to ignore the pull of Wyatt's voice as she wades around with her eyes closed. Not that he ends up going after her either, but he's also apparently skilled enough that he rarely ends up the one doing the chasing anyway. Which is fine, but she finds herself missing that physical contact with him, and if he's not ever 'it', he's not going to be chasing her. So the next time she finds herself with her eyes closed and swimming after the other three, she lets herself zero in on Wyatt's calls of 'Polo'.

Given his already established dodging skills, she's surprised to find herself within striking distance almost immediately, and then all of a sudden, she's got her arms around his neck and his hands are skimming her waist.

For half a second, he's looking up at her just so, and Lucy can almost convince herself that he's about to kiss her, but he's not, especially with Rufus and Jiya there, so she forces a smile and informs him in as playful a tone as she can muster that he's it.

The draw of the game begins to dwindle not long after, and at some point, with Rufus halfheartedly chasing down Wyatt, Jiya swims up to her and whispers her idea for what they could do next: a game of chicken. Lucy demurs immediately; if rubbing sunscreen on Wyatt's back was already a big mental leap, she can't possibly wrap her mind around the notion of wrapping her _legs_ around his neck. (Not that she hadn't imagined that once or twice… or more… in another sense. But she's hardly about to admit that to Jiya.)

Her protests apparently have little effect, for, not a minute later, Rufus is ducking under the water and resurfacing with Jiya sitting on his shoulders. Lucy can't see Wyatt's face, but she herself is most definitely on the receiving end of a harsh glare from Jiya, who nods in Wyatt's direction in the midst of said glare.

Lucy sighs, resigned. If she doesn't go along with it, Jiya's just going to call her out on it (one of the less appealing ways in which she reminds her of Amy), and that's just going to call Wyatt's attention to her discomfort, which will just increase that discomfort exponentially. So she takes a deep breath and reaches for Wyatt's shoulder, hauling herself up as best she can.

As best she can turns out to mean nearly giving him a concussion with her knee a couple times, but eventually, she's up, her posture mirroring Jiya's. She's ever so grateful when Rufus and Jiya launch themselves at her almost immediately, because if she had any more time to dwell on the pressure the position is putting on certain regions between her legs, she might spontaneously combust. She may have imagined straddling Wyatt before, but this was most certainly not what she'd had in mind. And that's not even accounting for the feel of his legs gripping her thighs to keep her upright.

So she focuses on taking Jiya down, in part using the fact that she'd initiated this stupid game as motivation to knock her off Rufus' shoulders. She manages to succeed twice in a row, and is on her way to a third win when something goes wrong and all four of them end up tumbling into the water awkwardly. Rufus ends up getting knocked in the face by someone on the way down, and he disappears into the house with Jiya to get ice.

Faced just Wyatt for the first time in a while, Lucy tries to ignore the fact that she'd just had his head between her legs and resorts to cheekily asking about the game. "Does that mean we won?" she quips, treading water beside him. She starts to force even more of a joke to try and avoid any awkward lull in the conversation, but some kid, once of Kevin's friends, presumably, decides to take a flying leap into the pool way too close to where she and Wyatt are. She tugs on Wyatt's arm rather forcefully, getting him just out of the way just in time. He looks bewildered at first until the kid apologizes and then shrugs it off.

"I think we're officially being invaded by teenagers," Lucy observes, taking in the sight of a smattering of other kids following suit and jumping into the pool after the first kid.

"You wanna get out?" Wyatt offers, nodding in the direction of the seats on the patio.

To be fair, no, Lucy doesn't really want to hang around a bunch of rowdy teenage boys. But she does still have some adrenaline from the physical contact with Wyatt still racing through her veins and she's reluctant to give him the opportunity to disappear into the house away from her or something. She spots the stairs where she initially tried to get into the pool and nods at him for her to follow her.

"We can just sit here," she says once they reach the steps. "It's too hot to get out." Which it is. It's just not the actual ulterior motive she'd had when she suggested coming over.

"Says the woman who would barely put one foot in," he teases, even as he goes along with her suggestion and takes a seat.

Lucy smiles reflexively in response, and can't help but notice that he's making room for her next to him.

She takes a deep breath. She'd just been straddling his shoulders. And he hadn't run screaming. Or anything else that might indicate an adverse reaction. So maybe could push a little harder.

So rather than taking a seat, she just sort of lets herself float in front of him, partially between his knees, and anchors herself to the spot by wrapping her arm around one of those knees. He doesn't shy away from that either, so she relaxes a little. Until he rests his hands on her arm and back and steals her breath for a minute.

She forces herself to breathe deeply and calm down, even going so far as to let her eyes close and just take in the feel of being so casually close to him, nearly dozing off.

Until the knee she's wrapped around slips from under her and she inadvertently gets a mouthful of water when she's jostled by the movement. She looks up, ready to chastise him, maybe exaggerate that he'd almost let her drown. But just as she's just been overtaken by a surge of water to the face, she's overtaken by a surge of affection; the slip of his knee wasn't intentional, he's asleep. Adorably asleep with his chin to his chest.

And his other leg has also clearly slid down a step too, so her previous strategy of latching onto his leg isn't possible anymore. Plus, if his legs slipping is any indication, the fact that he's truly asleep means he might actually loft up off the step he's sitting on and float.

Impulsively, she solves both of their problems and positions herself sideways on his lap, wrapping her arms around his waist to grip the step behind them and hold them in place. He doesn't stir, so she sucks in a stabilizing breath and tentatively rests her head on his chest. She does close her eyes, but this time she doesn't let herself come even close to falling asleep; if this is as close as she ever gets, she's going to want to remember every single second of it.

Eventually, Lucy hears Jiya approach and feels Wyatt shift when she informs him about food being almost ready.

The soft voice he uses when he nudges her to wake her sends a shiver up her spine, but there's no point in feigning sleep when she's wide awake.

"I heard," she admits, sitting up. "I just didn't want to move," she adds, surprised by her own bold honesty. If he's also surprised, he doesn't show it, the only thing clear on his face a red tinge from where the sun was starting to take its toll. She actually isn't sure if he'd even put any on there; she'd only done his back. "But you are looking a little red," she points out. "You should put on more sunscreen."

As much as he might need that sunscreen, she is still reluctant to move, but it has to happen, so she lets herself drift off his lap. He does that charming thing he always does and offers his hand to help her up the steps and out of the pool, though he lets go as soon as she's on dry ground.

Once they're on the patio, she really does want to make sure he's not burning his face too badly, so she partially covers up in her towel and heads over to him. He lets her put the sunscreen on his face, and it takes a whole lot of restraint on her part not to give in and just plant a kiss on him when his eyes are closed and his face is that close and vulnerable to hers. But she doesn't, and she makes it through another round of putting the sunblock on his back. But then he points out that she needs it too, and while she's just had her hands all over him again, she's not even close to mentally prepared for having _his_ hands all over _her_.

She doesn't think she breathes the entire time he's applying the sunscreen to her back; at the very least, she certainly isn't breathing when his fingers slip beneath the straps of her top and then flirt with the waistband at her lower back.

Lucy _is_ breathing, practically hyperventilating, when she realizes that when he finally lifts his hands from her back, she literally whimpers involuntarily. Which is mortifying. So while he busies himself with the rest of his sunblock, she darts into the house to the bathroom. What is she _doing_? Can she blame heat stroke for the erratic behavior that is so unlike her? She doesn't throw herself at men, she doesn't climb on their laps, she doesn't let herself get carried away by what should be just a platonic touch.

She calms herself down by reminding herself that Wyatt hasn't actually protested anything she's done, but she still feels that maybe a little distance would be best. So, though she exits the bathroom after splashing a little water on her face, she lingers in the kitchen, picking at the food still inside rather than going back out to the feasting crowd on the patio.

Unfortunately, she only has a little while to herself before Jiya comes in, needing a respite from manning the hot grill, followed soon after by Rufus' mom, who asks the two of them to help her carry out a few boxes of popsicles to round out the barbecue.

Given her hospitality in having the whole lot of both her sons' friends over on such a miserably hot day, Lucy isn't about to say no to her, so she's quickly obediently grabbing a few boxes from the freezer and heading back out to the patio. The mob of teenagers make quick work of most of the treats, but there are a few stray popsicles still left among the carnage of the boxes, so rather than let them melt and go to waste, she and Jiya both grab one. But Lucy's barely tasted the thing before Jiya's elbowing her in the ribs.

"Bet Wyatt wouldn't mind watching you with that," she whispers suggestively, laughing aloud as she leaves Lucy to head over to Rufus. Lucy's eyes widen at the insinuation, and she's blushing furiously as she pulls the popsicle from her mouth. But a furtive glance in Wyatt's direction reveals that he isn't watching anyway; his back is turned, and though she wishes she isn't, she finds herself a little disappointed that Jiya's assertion is apparently wrong. She can't bring herself to finish the popsicle after that, so she abandons it on a used plate sitting on the table.

At a loss for what else to do, she curls up alone on the wicker couch on the patio for a while; it's Rufus that finally coaxes her into moving again, offering a beer and nodding in the direction of the pool. She joins him, along with the other two, though she makes sure to keep Wyatt at arm's length or more this time around. She succeeds in doing so, to the point that somewhere in their aimless conversation over beers, he disappears without her really noticing. At the same time, it appears that the little bit of alcohol was enough to fuel an escalated level of PDA between Rufus and Jiya. Lucy has zero desire to be third wheel, so she leaves the two of them to their own devices, instead paddling back over to where she'd sat with ( _on_ ) Wyatt earlier.

She mostly tries to leave them be, focusing instead on watching Kevin and his friends, wondering how on Earth they could possibly think it's a good idea to run around playing volleyball or lighting a bonfire when, even as the sun is now setting, it's still ninety-plus degrees out. But she's not entirely successful in avoiding watching her friends, now alone in their own little world at the edge of the pool.

She's happy for them, she _is_. She knows Rufus well enough now to know that he hadn't had the best history with successful relationships, so she's glad for him. And Jiya is great, and so lucky to have a guy like Rufus. But seeing the two of them together never fails to elicit at least a dull pang in her chest, and sometimes, kind of like now, a more fiercely jealous ache. She wants that, and she wants everything that goes along with it, from the shallow stuff like holding hands and kissing in the pool and sex to the deeper closeness to the kids she'd told him and Wyatt that she was supposed to be able to read history books to. As she'd told them back in 1750-whatver (it's getting to the point where they've jumped so many times that she's starting to lose track of all the specifics of their missions), she'd always figured there was time, that she'd just inevitably meet someone along the way in grad school, or during her postdoc, or in her cohort of new hires when she'd gotten the tenure-track position on campus. But despite attempts at relationships here and there, none had really come to fruition.

And now? Now she's caught up in everything she's feeling for Wyatt that he theoretically might, but doesn't really seem to, return, to the point that even if a veritable Prince Charming rolled up and started pursuing her tomorrow, it'll still probably be a while before she's emotionally ready for anyone that's not Wyatt.

Amy's voice is back in her head as she sits and steals another wistful glimpse at Rufus and Jiya. She needs to just bite the bullet and go for it, either make a move or talk to him, _something_. So that at least if he's not interested, she'll finally know for sure and can actually focus her efforts on moving on, instead of this silly, embarrassing limbo of trying to awkwardly flirt and then having to guess if he's just being polite.

Maybe tonight. It's clearly been on her mind all day, she's just had a beer, maybe it's time to just _do_ something.

But, because it's what she does, she's already wavered back to the 'maybe not' side of her internal debate by the time Wyatt reappears from wherever he'd gone and walks up to her with her towel and promises of s'mores.

She can't turn that down, and is maybe, kind of, feeling a little hopeful when she feels his arm around her waist as they head back toward the fire.

She's significantly less hopeful when she proves herself to be an inept idiot that can't even handle a simple task like roasting a marshmallow when she drops one and then nearly lights the whole yard on fire by flinging another one that she's managed to incinerate. Wyatt sounds exasperated with her as he works to calm her down and not panic over the burning marshmallow. She slinks away, not really feeling up for any more of a display of her own incompetence; no wonder she's terrible at trying to flirt, she can't even manage a skill that most kids learn when they're six years old at summer camp.

At least Wyatt doesn't seem annoyed when he approaches the patio a few minutes later bearing a skewer with multiple perfectly toasted marshmallows. Because of course that's part of his skill set on top of everything else.

Though she feels a little better when he drops one too. Just as he's sitting next to her, the one on the end of the skewer proves a little too gooey. Of course, because he's him, he manages to catch it, but it just leaves him with the sugary mess perched between his fingertips rather than on the floor. Lucy can see him scanning the tables nearby for something to cleanup with, even going so far as to start to elicit her help. "Lucy," he asks, "do you see any napk-"

She's not sure where the impulse comes from; for once, it's not even Amy's incessant little voice in the back of her mind, or even Jiya's. It just… seems like a reasonable idea at the time. And maybe she's still a little stung, that even for Jiya's insinuation earlier, Wyatt _hadn't_ seen her with the inherently suggestive popsicle, or worse, had, but hadn't thought anything of it because it was her. But this time, she forces the issue, because, before she's really able to process that she's going to do it, she's grabbing at his wrist to steady it and then literally eating the marshmallow off his fingers. And because it's messy and her cover for the whole thing is ostensibly to be a stand-in for a napkin that would be cleaning those fingers, and also because maybe her hormones are getting the better of her at the moment, she takes it a little further, specifically running her tongue over his thumb and then sucking the sticky sugar goo from his index finger. A little shiver runs up her spine as she does, but bold as the overall action may be, she's still not quite daring enough to look up at Wyatt to gauge his reaction and see if she's having a similar effect on him.

Reality kicks back in when his finger is marshmallow-free and suddenly Lucy has no idea what she'd been thinking, because Wyatt hasn't made any sort of indication that what she'd done was in any way favorable. She leans back in her seat, deftly grabbing another marshmallow to shove in her mouth lest she start to apologize and make the whole thing any more awkward than it already is.

She ever so relieved to see Rufus and Jiya approaching, and she shoots them a grateful smile, even if they are bearing more marshmallows.

They also have alcohol, and while Lucy's already blaming the little self-control meltdown she's just had on the beers they'd had while in the pool, she doesn't really have a way to evade the drinking game they're proposing. She does manage to push aside any awkwardness momentarily, to solicit a favor from Wyatt. "Please don't let me die of alcohol poisoning right now," she requests. It's been years, but she and Amy used to compete in an alcohol-free version of the game with those awful Peeps candies every Easter, and even in the years when Lucy had been nearly an adult and Amy still a child, with presumably corresponding adult- and child-sized mouths, Amy had managed to beat her every time. Which could spell disaster here.

Wyatt just chuckles at her, but she knows he'll still watch out for her if it comes to it. She may not trust that he's attracted to her, but she trusts him on every other front.

In the end, Lucy surprises herself by managing to outlast Jiya and even hold her own against the guys, until, at some point, she happens to recall her earlier vow by the pool to just go for it and either talk to Wyatt or just do something to gauge his interest. Shoving half a bag of marshmallows into her mouth had _not_ been what she'd had in mind, and she can only imagine how ridiculous she looks, and actually, she thinks she might be drooling. The whole thing strikes her as so sad and pathetic and crazy that she dissolves into laughter, nearly choking on said marshmallows. And it turns into one of those out-of-control laughing fits that just can't be reined in, because really, the whole day has been one big mess of crazy weirdness.

A fact further confirmed when, still doubled over on the tail end of the laughing fit, she ends up with her head on Wyatt's leg and looks up to catch a glimpse of just how ridiculous _he_ looks with his face puffed out to the max. She must still be residually giddy from her own laughing fit, because it makes complete sense in that moment to reach up and poke him in the cheek.

His effort to not laugh in response fails spectacularly, and he feigns anger at her, pouting and informing her, "I could have beaten him, you know. You screwed me up." But he's actually smiling at her and, god, she just wants him, wants _this_ , the casual silly closeness, with him so badly, and she's already sort of leaning against him, and she can't bring herself to pull away.

She still doesn't really move when they both do the 'loser' shots that Rufus insists on, and she's more than a little grateful that Wyatt talks Rufus down from the actual tally they should have done, per the rules, to a far more reasonable two.

Still, two is sufficient to bring about enough of an agreeable buzz that Lucy decides she's going to take what she can get and if Wyatt's not going to complain about her leaning against his bare chest, she'll stay right where she is and enjoy it while she has the opportunity; they can go back to being fully-clothed, normal, platonic colleagues tomorrow.

Except it's still disgustingly hot, which means every time she shifts against him even a little, it's accompanied by less-than-pleasant peeling of herself off his skin.

After one such maneuver, Wyatt must finally be getting sick of her against him, because he shakes her off his shoulder and nods across the patio, suggesting, "Pool?"

As reluctant as Lucy is to relinquish the physical contact with Wyatt while she can still get away with it by blaming the heat and the alcohol, the cool water really does sound tempting. So she climbs off the couch and heads to the pool, hyper-aware of Wyatt just behind her. The thought crosses her mind that he might try to toss her in again, but she's also cognizant of the fact that she's right at that level of tipsy that might have her hold on and not let go if he picks her up. Which, despite being willing to have her lean on him, he may not take so well. So she jumps in before he has the opportunity.

Rufus decides sneak-dunking everyone else is a splendid idea, but since the whole car accident fiasco in college, she's never been a fan of being forced underwater; she shoots Rufus a warning glance when he eyes her the first time, and thankfully, he obliges with her silent request. Wyatt isn't so lucky, and Lucy can tell he's getting a little annoyed.

So while Rufus is preoccupied with chasing Jiya to dunk her, Lucy catches up to Wyatt. She tells herself that wrapping her arms and legs around him is perfectly innocent, all in the name of keeping Rufus away, and she tells Wyatt as much when she leans over his shoulder. He also takes to drifting his hand up and down one of her shins while treading water with his other arm, and she tells herself maybe it means he doesn't mind that she's less than gracefully clinging to his back like a drowning monkey.

But the alcohol doesn't let her think too much harder about it than that, so she just hangs onto him, again trying to take what she can get in terms of any physical contact at all.

It only really sinks in as uncomfortable and desperate when Rufus and Jiya start getting all cozy again and it's glaringly obvious that, while _their_ physical contact is clearly relationship-driven, Lucy's with Wyatt is most definitely _not_. She's already about to let go when Wyatt gestures back toward the patio, probably having hit his limit of her hanging off him.

But then he sits back down on the couch at even more of an angle that he was before, and she can't see it as anything but an invitation to curl up against him, so she does exactly that before she can second-guess herself for the millionth time that day. Just as she had earlier, when she'd had the audacity to climb on his lap, Lucy tries to stay awake to savor the feel of his body against hers, but it's been a long day of hot temperatures and exhausting emotional and mental gymnastics on her part, so between that and the lingering headiness of the alcohol, she feels herself starting to drift off against him. Just before she does, she feels him unclasp her hair clip and run his fingers through her hair, and she nods off wishing they could fall asleep exactly that way every night.

She doesn't know how much later it is when she wakes to him moving ever so slightly just as Rufus' mom is telling him they don't have to go. Given the fact that she's still curled up against Wyatt, Lucy wouldn't mind not going anywhere just yet, but even as he runs his hand over her hair again, he's already making a move to leave. "Luce," he whispers, "we should go."

Her heart does a little fluttery thing, just like it always does when the shortened version of her name slips from his mouth. She's sure it's really just an issue of brevity, but a little part of her always hopes that it's maybe more in line with what might be considered a term of endearment.

And for a split second when she meets his gaze as she sits up, there's something – longing? – to the look in his eyes that makes her think that maybe, just maybe, it actually it could be, but then it's gone, and he's standing up to rifle around for the bag he'd brought with him.

She has to know. She has to.

She's not sure she can take this not knowing where they stand anymore. She's going to do… something. What she's not sure, but Lucy promises herself that she's not going home tonight without figuring out what they are to each other. But it's been – she glances over at the ornamental clock hung above the patio door – a full two hours that they've been dozing, on top of the at least an hour they'd spent in the pool, and another half hour before that of lazing around after the shots, so she won't be able to write any of whatever she does off as being fueled by booze. She just doesn't know what to do.

In the meantime, she pulls her dress back over her head, readying her other things in her bag, still wondering all the while if it would be better to just straight up ask him whatever happened to possibilities, or if she should _do_ something, or-

Then there he is, standing there waiting for her to leave with him, and his hand is extended out, and she knows it's just him doing that polite gentlemanly thing of gesturing for her to walk ahead of him, because it's Wyatt, and that's just what he does, but she's Lucy and she has to know, and it's still his hand extended in her direction, so she just goes for it and slips her hand into his instead, lacing her fingers through his.

Wyatt's surprised, she can tell, because he freezes there and doesn't move toward the house until she gives him a slight shove, but at least he doesn't pull his hand away.

Once inside, they thank Rufus' mother for her hospitality, but she just tells them to think nothing of it, that she's happy to have finally met the friends that she hears about so often from Rufus. And then somewhere in there, she manages to somehow compliment them on how wonderful a couple they are. Wyatt doesn't correct her, and Lucy tries to tell herself that it doesn't mean anything, that she shouldn't take it as a sign of anything, that she still needs to just talk to him, but the lack of denial on his part still has her stomach doing a little flipflop when she replies with a shy "Thank you."

It's only when they reach the front porch and Lucy sees their cars along the side of the street that she really realizes that she has to do _something_ because she can't go home tonight without knowing.

And she's sure it's overly optimistic, but on the off-chance that whatever she ends up doing goes well, she's not going to want to go home alone.

So, impulsively, she squeezes Wyatt's hand and tells him to wait for her while she runs back inside.

Rufus' mom is surprised to see her, and probably even more surprised when she blurts out that they're not actually a couple, but if something about that status were to change in the next few minutes, would it be ok if they left one of their cars in front of the house for the night? Lucy's pretty sure she's bright red as the words tumble out of her mouth, but the older woman just shoots her a softly amused smile and nods, telling her to go get him.

He hasn't driven off without her when she steps back out onto the porch, which she supposes could be considered promising. And he still doesn't pull away when she reaches for his hand again.

But then they're already across the lawn and it's now or never and all Lucy can think is that if she tries to talk her way through this thing, it's just going to come out all wrong.

So even though Wyatt is actually starting to say something himself, she doesn't let him finish, and instead goes for broke and leans up on her toes to press her lips to his.

He doesn't react.

He doesn't do _anything_ and Lucy wants to cry, because it's everything she was afraid of. She backs off, ready to apologize and then bolt for her car to actually partake in the crying, but something makes her lean in one more time, desperately trying to convince herself that she's wrong, that there _is_ something there.

And then it's as if a switch has gone off somewhere, because out of nowhere, Wyatt springs to life, his lips suddenly moving against hers as he shoves her bag off her shoulder to the ground. She lets out a little hiccup of surprise against his mouth when his arms wrap around her to pull her closer to him, but he just takes that as an invitation to run his tongue over hers and that surprise fades quickly into delight.

For as hot as it's been the past two days, it's nothing compared to the fire racing through Lucy's veins as she drinks in Wyatt's kisses, practically purring with contentment as his hands wander over her body and everything she's hoped for with him becomes a very real possibility.

He pulls away at some point, breathing heavily, but she can't even bring herself to be upset because he looks so good, his mouth all swollen from _her_ kisses.

She's not questioning how she went about things, but she does feel a little badly that he'd been going to say something when she'd cut him off with the kiss, so she speaks up, a little bashful as she does. "Before, um, _this_ ," she stammers, "what were you going to say?"

He laughs and looks a little bashful himself as he admits, "Pretty much what you did." He adds with a shrug, "but I think you said it better than I was going to."

At first she feels a little bubble of joy in her chest at the fact that they truly were on the same page and she's just been worrying and stuck in her head for no reason, but then she's a little saddened by the fact that they'd both apparently barely worked up the nerve to do anything about it, meaning who knows how much longer it could have been that nothing happened. "I'm just glad someone did," she replies, her gaze dropping down.

Wyatt reaches out to lift her face back up and echoes seriously, "Me too."

And of course she's going to kiss him again after _that_. So she does, and then it keeps going, and then she can feel him, warm and solid against her hip, and though she's hardly complaining, it may be that Rufus' mom or the neighbors might if things go any farther out here on the lawn.

So she leans back ever so slightly, her heavy breaths still close enough to mingle with his as she informs him, "Rufus' mom said we can leave a car parked here. I asked," she adds with a smirk.

He smirks right back at her and pulls her in for yet another blistering kiss.

They do eventually leave to head to his apartment; she doesn't have to drape herself on her air conditioner after all. She'll be on Wyatt instead.

(Rufus is going to be merciless the next time they see him. But it's worth it.)

 **~FIN~**

* * *

 **I know some people may not like Lucy's self-doubt, but while I see Wyatt's main mental hurdle on the path to a relationship just being the Jessica issue, Lucy has to deal with questions about that too, in addition to the fact that she (seemingly…? I dunno, that's just the read I get on her character) hasn't been in a relationship as serious as what she wants or as what Wyatt is used to. Though I think she came off a little more insecure than I originally intended. But she made the move in the end, so it's all good, right? :)**

Edit: (I don't think what I'm mentioning below counts as spoilers, but just in case, minor/vague spoiler alert? For the DVD deleted scenes?)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I'm actually even more convinced that I'm right about Lucy now that I've seen the deleted scenes on the DVD :)


End file.
